Saturday, 16 September 2017

Without doubt, Turkey today has the strongest and
most numerous naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkish Navy has more
frigates, submarines and fast attack missile boats (Egypt has more FACM but most of them
are not serviceable) than any other navy with significant naval fleet in the region such as the Hellenic Navy, Egyptian Navy and Israeli Navy. Not only Turkey has more
warships but also those vessels have been modernized or upgraded recently as it
will be described thoroughly in the next paragraphs. But Turkey has even
greater naval ambitions. This article will summarize the most important
developments in the Turkish Navy force structure and its impressive shipbuilding plans
from 2010 with a look toward 2030. It should be mentioned here that when I
refer to "upgrade" I mean new electronics - sensors and weapons while "modernization" is either
new weapons or new electronics and not both.